Today we're proud to announce that Central Desktop was named to the prestigious Inc. 500 list for the first time!

The list, which is compiled by Inc. Magazine, ranks the fastest-growing private companies in America based on revenue growth over the past 3 years. In addition to making the overall Inc. 500 list at No. 180, we were also No. 17 in the Software industry and No. 18 in the Los Angeles area.  

Making the list is a huge achievement for us, particularly because the past few years have been so tough on the economy. Being able to join the ranks of past companies who have made the list such as Microsoft, Zappos, American Apparel and Oracle is pretty exciting.  

If you're interested in checking out this year's full Inc. 500/5000 list, visit http://www.inc.com/inc5000.

Document management can quickly change from affordable to costly when unnecessary man hours need to be put in to maintain even the bare minimum level of organization. Luckily, affordable document management can be attained as easily as approaching the situation with a plan, and then creating a system that provides maximum leverage and that everyone can easily navigate.  The most affordable steps a non-profit can take to streamline document management will cost the organization nothing at all and will allow it to save the dollars and cents for something more important.

Clearly identifying the overall approach to document management comes in the form of asking a few simple questions and finding the right place to store the documents.

Who needs the documents?

Anticipating before the document is stored who may need it gives the information purpose, since information is only good to those who can leverage it.

When and why will  the documents be needed?

Knowing what the documents will be used for once they are accessed provides the necessary sub-division the documents will fall into so that they can be easily brought out again once the magic moment comes.

Intranets are the best way to foster employee communication and provide access to valuable company resources, whether it's across a small business or a large corporation. But let's be honest - many an intranet end up as a stale abyss that we only visit when interested in the next company holiday.

How do you keep your intranet fresh, so your employees continue to check back regularly for new announcements and resources? By making your intranet a living and interactive environment, with constantly refreshed and updated parts. One great way I've seen customers spruce up their intranet is with an image gallery from the latest company outing, conference or lunch-and-learn. This is not only a great way to add some flavor, but a great way to create engagement and a sense of community among your employees.

The easiest way to display your photo gallery on your intranet is to add an application block to your intranet's homepage. 

All it takes is 5 easy steps: 

1.) Upload Photos into the Workspace within their own Folder

2.) Edit the Workspace Homepage




3.)  Select "Insert More" and select the "Folders and Documents" Application Block

Tired of seeing endless amounts of paper stack up on your desk?  And even worse, seeing hundreds of pieces thrown away immediately because they were simply rough drafts or had printing errors?  I just came across some interesting facts about paper waste in the office (the whole article can be found at Reduce.org) that I wanted to share with you:

• The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year.
• The United States alone, which has less than 5% of the world's population, consumes 30% of the world's paper.
• The costs of using paper in the office can run 13 to 31 times the cost of purchasing the paper in the first place! (So, that ream of paper that you paid $5 for really could cost up to $155!)
• Citigroup, a large financial services company, determined that if each employee used double-sided copying to conserve just one sheet of paper each week, the firm would save $700,000 each year.
• Reducing paper use reduces greenhouse gases: 40 reams of paper is like 1.5 acres of pine forest absorbing carbon for a year.
  

The solution: Go Paperless

A paperless office lets you organize your files and documents online, thereby reducing clutter, waste and high paper costs.

Central Desktop is one of the many collaboration solutions out there that help you set up a completely virtual office environment.  Here are a few features within today's collaboration solutions that help achieve organization nirvana and  eliminate the clutter and paper waste in your office.

1. Files & Discussions - An area where one can keep their files and documents in a central file repository.  You can keep your electronic MS Word, Excel and any number of files within this area and create a clean organized file structure to help with navigation and easy access to all your important files.  Since it is centralized, any member can access the file without needing to dig through mounds of paper or shuffle through endless cabinets of files.

The Central Desktop Team is very proud to announce that this morning we have released Central Desktop for Office from public beta.  If you have missed our previous announcements about this exciting new product, Central Desktop for Office radically improves the way users collaborate on Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. It allows users to open, save, edit and co-author files stored online in Central Desktop directly from Office.  See Central Desktop for Office in action:

Hi my name is Philip Snyder. You may remember me from other blog posts such as Files, Folders & Organization and Central Desktop's MVC. I've been working on the folder tree in Files & Discussions here at Central Desktop, giving you the best interface we can for browsing and managing your files. It is my goal to give you an interface that is intuitive, familiar, and easy to work with. Today I'm going to talk a little about an exciting feature in HTML5 that promises to make your life even easier!

First off, I should clear up that HTML5 is an "upgrade" to the aging HTML4 specification... there are various improvements and a large subset of new functionalities; some of which are still being formalized. This feature list includes support for audio and video streaming, native dragging and dropping of elements in the web page, and Canvas -- which is kind of like Microsoft Paint for web developers.

Drag and drop is fairly basic functionality that almost everyone uses on a daily basis locally on their computer. We thought that the new support for File Drag & Drop in HTML5 would be an excellent way to make our file and folder management behave even more like your local computer. The concept is that you should be able to drag files from your Windows Explorer or Mac Finder window directly into your Central Desktop folders and have them automatically upload.

Sounds great doesn't it? I wish it were that simple. Unfortunately, since HTML5 is still relatively new, almost every browser is either still implementing it or has various differences in implementation that make a web developer want to cry. To make matters more complicated, accessing file information is even newer than the HTML5 specification, which means that if I'm going to support all the browsers, I'll have to hack my way into the next decade to create a cross-browser library to support them all.

Well, that's where I started. After spending a decent amount of time attempting to get them all working, I have come down to 2 basic conclusions.

1. Google Chrome is awesome!
   
2. File Drag & Drop is just not ready for prime time yet.

 

Browser Implementation Issues

The following is a list of issues I have encountered:

 

Non-profit organizations tend to be filled with people who are drawn to the bigger picture, people who are committed to being a part of something.  Members of non-profit organizations are often grouped into tiers by level of involvement in the organization, ranging from volunteers to members of the board.

For board members, trying to manage the members of a non-profit organization can be a daunting feat if you don't know where to begin. Keeping each level of the organization apprised of what is expected of them while maintaining an overview of what takes place overall is really what people are looking for in terms of comprehensive member management.  

Over the years I have crossed paths with and been a part of a few non-profit organizations, including two museums. Being exposed to the inner-workings of these non-profits also exposed me to the common gripes that spark up when it comes to managing members. A few of the most common issues I saw pop-up over and over again are:

1. Keeping track of who needs to know what
   
2. Spending too much time on the organizing with little appreciation or application
   
3. Losing information in the shuffle
   
4. Re-inventing the wheel

Some tips to overcome these common non-profit hurdles are:

• Maintaining regular contact is one of the easiest ways to manage members, and leads to better management of the entire organization.
  
• Providing readily available information is the second way an organization can easily manage members by controlling how information flows.
  

Some of you may already be familiar with the Intuit Workplace site, where Intuit QuickBooks users can access a portal of business applications. As one of the first applications to join the App Center, Central Desktop has teamed up with the Intuit team to provide an application that addresses Intuit Small Business customers' project collaboration needs.

In this spirit, we've added a new solution exclusively for Intuit called "Central Desktop for Professional Services." This Intuit Workplace App was built for service businesses, such as independent consultants, contractors, CPAs, lawyers and QuickBooks ProAdvisors, who are looking for a virtual site to manage projects, share information & collaborate with clients. 

Central Desktop is also a part of Intuit's current "Work from Anywhere" campaign. From now until August 20, anyone who signs up for a free or premium version of Central Desktop for Professional Services on Intuit is entered in a sweepstakes to win a free Flip Cam!  But the devil's in the details - the fine print also lists other ways to earn up to 10 entries in the sweepstakes.  Here's the scoring mechanism for those of you competitive types:

• Get one sweepstakes entry for signing up for any app that's featured in the "Work from Anywhere" promotion (we suggest Central Desktop for Professional Services) :)
  
• Earn one entry for every time you log-in to the Workplace App
• For every person you "invite" into the Workplace App to collaborate with you, get one more sweepstakes entry!

Good luck!

For more information about Central Desktop for Professional Services, check out the video below: